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Submitted By:
Steve King
Bruce, Misssissippi
January 2002
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Wyoming has been my favorite place to hunt Mule Deer for many years, and I'm sure you can understand how excited I was when I received my Wyoming license last July!! I have hunted Wyoming many times and have taken some nice Mule Deer.
I called a good friend of mine in Encampment Lloyd Buford. Lloyd has a meat processing plant and cuts most of the wild game in his parts. I know he doesn't know where all the big deer come from, but he has a good idea which direction they come from. I talked to another friend, Dave Sturm of Saratoga and between the two of them , Jeremy and I decided to start out south west of Encampment.
Hoping for good hunting weather, including fresh snow, we were disappointed to arrive with no snow and a lot of sunshine and wind. That all changed the very first night. We awoke the first morning with a fresh snow, about six inches, and knew we were in for a great hunt!
We saw lots of Elk and Mule Deer the next several days, the weather cooperated, it snowed every day and night, but just enough to make the hunting great!! I took this great Mule Deer and had a great hunt. We hunted Medicine Bow National Forest, which stretches for miles!! A great place for a do-it-yourself hunt.
Remember, applications for Mule Deer have to be in by March 15, so if you want to hunt Wyoming for Mule Deer, you need to start planning early. Those mountains can be tough, get in shape, prepare for bad and cold weather, get good maps, practice long shots, buy a range finder and a GPS and learn to use it!! (they really are simple). Have a great hunting season!
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Submitted By:
Rick Carter
Yakutat, Alaska
March 2003
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HI my name is Rick Carter I live and hunt in Yakutat, Alaska
This is my 14 year old daughter, Jessica with the wolf she got while we were out scouting for moose this last October. The wolf was a big male it weighed in at 168#s We came upon a pack as we were riding the beach looking for moose sign. There were 9 in the pack we got two. She took this one with her Ruger M77 30-06 with 165gr Remington corelock at about 75 yards. We hunt the beaches late in the season as the moose come down from the high contry.And the wolves follow. We also ran into the normal number of brown bears that are fishing in the rivers. This is a great place to hunt with the kids. They learn that they are not the top of the predator that you have to keep on your toes all the time when hunting in Bear country . Thanks Be safe and Hunt with your kids its a good feeling
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Submitted By:
Joe Paul Ferguson
Banner, Misssissippi
January 2002
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This is a picture of me and my youngest, Rudy, who is going to be the hunter of the family I think. He is crazy about it. Only wants to wear camo and shoot critters. The deer is a thirteen point I got pictures of over the late summer and fall and took him on the second day of gun season 2001. He and three other deer came out of a thicket downwind of me but the Camo Dust did it's job. There was a buck with him I got a pretty good look at after I shot this deer and he looked to be a bit larger but I haven't been able to find him since. This is the first year to use the Camo Dust and some pretty amazing things have happened. I have definitely seen more quality bucks and had a ten and an eight point that looked to be 3 1/2 year old deer come within 25 yards of me, down wind, and just looked at me and walked away.
 This is a picture of a buck my brother, Jon Ferguson, killed during the second gun season. My eighteen year old son was supposed to hunt the stand Jon was in that morning but decided not to go because he had something to do that day. Jon had the buck on the ground at 08:00. Goes to show, you have to take every opportunity you get to hunt no matter how long you can stay on your stand.Some of the most memorable hunts I have had were the ones when I only had a couple hours to hunt.
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Submitted By:
Joe Paul Ferguson
Banner, Misssissippi
January 2001
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I am from Mississippi and took this buck last January the last week of gun season. I wanted to go hunting that evening and it was already about 3:30 p.m.. I walked in and decided to sit down in a make shift ground blind made of cedar trees I had cut and piled for my father in law to pull his 4 wheeler into and watch a pond that deer had been coming to for water. We had a very dry fall last year and the deer were really using this pond for water. I had seen a big track there and a buck had made several scrapes and rubs near by. I sat down on a five gallon bucket and poured some buck urine out to cover my scent. It was drizzling rain and I sat there thinking about how much money I had invested in shooting houses and climbing stands etc.. and was thinking about how stupid it was to be sitting on an uncomfortable bucket.
It was getting late, around 5:00 and I heard a dear grunt to my right and heard heavy steps in the woods next to me. I was watching straight ahead along the wood line beside the pond when something caught my eye from my left. Since I had heard the deep sounding grunt to my right, I did not expect the deer to come from my left. The deer was coming around the edge of the pond taking a step about very thirty seconds and twisting his head from side to side. He looked straight at me from about 100 yards and due to the dark woods in the background I could not make out his rack even through my 50 mm scope. I watched him for what seemed to be an eternity and waited for him to pass between me and a white oak tree. I knew that would be my only chance to get any idea how big his rack was. I had even decided that I was just seeing things and the deer was a big doe, not a buck at all.
When he passed by the bright trunk of the white oak I saw movement above his head that I was sure was a pretty good set of antlers. I still waited another few minutes to try and make sure he was a shooter. I had not fired a shot in two years passing all bucks that were not nice enough to mount and I sure didn't want to take a small buck and be sick about it. The buck had three or four more steps and he was back in the woods so I had to make a decision. I decided that if I was going to shoot, I would make sure I didn't have to trail him all night and put the crosshairs on his neck and squeezed off a shot. He fell in his tracks and I could see that I had made a good hit. When I walked over to get a look I almost fainted.
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Submitted By:
Joe Paul Ferguson
Banner, Misssissippi
December 2000
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This is my nephew Jason Ferguson with the buck he took December 2000 in Smith County on the Bienville National Forest. The buck scored 154 and took tenth overall in the regional big buck contest held in that area for which he was awarded the nice rifle he is holding. Jason was hunting from a stand in a thinned pine plantation when he noticed three does crossing in front of his stand. As he watched the does pass by something caught his eye in the direction the does had just come from. It did not take a second look to see that this was a tremendous buck. Jason said he remembered thinking that there was no way there was a buck this big on a national forest. Chalk on up for public land. He quickly realized that the buck was not going to pass close enough to allow him a clean shot and he had to react soon or miss the chance of a lifetime. Jason climbed down his stand and started toward the best place he thought would offer him a shot. As he hurried to get to a better location, he blew his grunt call and the buck turned around and headed straight for him. He blew again to stop the buck at about fifty yards and dropped him in his tracks. Jason is a student at Mississippi State University in Starkville, MS.
P.S.
I've had the trail camera out and there are some good bucks that I have to outsmart this season and will let you know how it goes.
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